In my two years of teaching Koreans students online, I encountered a lot of instructors committing the same mistakes over and over again. I hear them everyday, so I decided to write down some of them.I feel the need of helping, but we have QAs anyway and there is what we call monthly evaluation. They are paid for that and I am just an ordinary teacher here. I need help, too. Sometimes.
In pronunciation, teachers tend to enunciate words the wrong way by putting the stress on the wrong syllable.
The word ceremony should be pronounced as [ser-uh-moh-nee] with the stress on the first syllable, but it is pronounced as [ser-uh-moh-nee] by others.
Here is more of commonly mispronounced words.
Proper Stressing:
WORD> WRONG> CORRECT
colleague>[kol-eeg]>[kol-eeg]
utensil>[yoo-ten-sil]>[yoo-ten-sil]
Long /e/ sound:
appreciation>[uh-pre-shey-shuhn]>[uh-pree-shee-ey-shuhn]
enunciate>[i-nuhn-sheyt]>[i-nuhn-see-eyt]
The /z/ sound:
is>[is]>[iz]
was>[was]>[wuhz, woz; unstressed wuhz]
The /s/ sound:
pizza>[pee-zuh]>[peet-suh]
exciting>[ig-zay-ting]>[ik-sahy-ting]
The /ch/ sound:
Rachel>[rey-shell]>[rey-chuhl]
The /uh/ and /uh/ sound:
culture>[cool-cher]>[kuhl-cher]
cupboard>[ka-bawrd]>[kuhb-erd]
patriarchal>[paht-ree-ahrk-al]>[pey-tree-ahrk-al]
matriarchal>[maht-ree-ahrk-al]>[mey-tree-ahrk-al]
Long /e/ sound:
theme>[them]>[theem]
cheater>[chi-ter]>[chee-ter]
beach>[bitch]>[beech]
The /i/ sound:
hypocrite>[hay-po-krit]>[hip-uh-krit]
Others:
sentence>[sen-tens]>[sen-tns]
title>[tahy-tel]>[tahyt-l]
turtle>[tur-tel]>[tur-tl]
button>[bat-on]>[buht-n]
GRAMMAR MISTAKES
The following is a list of grammar mistakes I heard from other teachers as well.
I think, they just simply fall under subject-verb agreement, tenses, and structure. Down there, I have my own correction of each wrong sentence or question. I hope they're correct. Really. Haha.
W: In every countries, there are different cultures, right?
R: There are different cultures in every country, right?
W: What were you doing before I call you?
R: What were you doing before I called?
W: How is it working?
R: How is it like working for LG?
W: Let's have now our lesson.
R: Let's now have our lesson.
W: Do you know what caffeine spells?
R: Do you know how caffeine spelled?
W: You're going to tell me if what kind of music do you like.
R: You should be telling me what kind of music you like.
W: What do you think is the best way to get rid the mosquitoes?
R: What do you think is the best way to get rid of the mosquitoes?
W: Did you sleep last night late?
R: Did you sleep late last night?
W: How do you like? What do you like?
R: Describe yourself to me./ How about you?/ Tell me about yourself.
W: How many age are your gap?
R: How many years is your gap?
W: Every children have different approach, right?
R: You have to use a different approach for every child, right?
W: Twenty persons can rode that jeep.
R: Twenty people can ride that jeep.
W: How's the weather yesterday?
R: How was the weather yesterday?
W: When you sleep over, you woke up 9 AM?
R: You woke up at 9 AM when you slept over?
W: You already has it.
R: You already have it.
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English is really hard to learn, but it becomes easy if you are really interested in learning it. In fact, it is my third language already.
I know I need to improve more. I can often tell if a sentence is wrong or not, but it is kind of hard to explain the semantic or syntactic rules behind them.
I usually stick to what my English teacher used to tell us in college.
You know the grammar is wrong if it sounds bad!
